Maria Luisa Gambale

www.veradonnafilms.com

Maria Luisa Gambale, a graduate of Harvard University, lives in New York City. In addition to writing, she produces film and media projects and is director of the 2011 film "Sarabah," about the Senegalese rapper-activist Sister Fa. She has produced and directed video for National Geographic, ABC News, The New York Times and Fusion Network. Gambale's work in all media can be viewed at www.veradonnafilms.com.

COVID-19

Pandemic Relief: Beirut Test-Drives Mobile Medicine for Migrants

Maria Luisa Gambale

• March 10, 2021

Through the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, Beirut was spared the catastrophic caseloads that brought many cities around the world to their knees throughout the spring and early summer of 2020, but the port blast on Aug. 4 changed all that. The explosion itself killed at least 200 people, left 300,000 people homeless …

Cities, Covid-19, Health and Population

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TOPIC: WOMEN

Wazhma Frogh Wants Women in the Afghan Peace Talks Now

Maria Luisa Gambale

• May 13, 2019

Wazhma Frogh is a lifetime campaigner for Afghan women and girls. She co-founded the Women and Peace Studies Organization in Afghanistan in 2011 and is a member of the Afghan Women’s Network. In 2009, the United States State Department granted her the International Women of Courage Award. Frogh recently spoke with PassBlue through a …

Asia, Gender Violence, US Foreign Relations, Women

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TOPIC: WOMEN

Violence Is a Choice: The Peace Philosophy of Filmmaker Abigail Disney

Maria Luisa Gambale

• March 25, 2019

Abigail Disney is an American filmmaker and philanthropist who founded Fork Films and Peace Is Loud, an advocacy group. She also founded — with her husband, Pierre Hauser — the Daphne Foundation. Since her 2009 film “Pray the Devil Back to Hell,” which documented women’s peace activism that brought to power Liberia’s first female …

Gender Violence, Peace and Security, Women

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TOPIC: WOMEN

‘We Do Not Ask. We Act’: A Syrian Women Activist Tells It Like It Is

Maria Luisa Gambale and Laura E. Kirkpatrick

• November 20, 2018

Mariam Jalabi, a co-founder of the Syrian Women’s Political Movement and the Syrian National Council’s representative to the United Nations, reflected on Syria’s future in a recent conversation with Jamille Bigio, senior fellow in the Council on Foreign Relations’ Women and Foreign Policy program. Jalabi’s work focuses on women’s inclusion in politics and decision-making, and …

Syria, Women

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GEOPOLITICS

Striking a Better Balance in the Newest UN Peacekeeping Reforms

Maria Luisa Gambale

• October 4, 2018

Just days before the United Nations held a meeting with heads of state and foreign ministers on Secretary-General António Guterres’s Action for Peacekeeping initiative, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2436 on peace operations, on Sept. 21. Drafted by the United States, the resolution is the result of collaboration between Council members and …

Geopolitics, UN Peacekeeping, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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NIKKI HALEY WATCH

The UN’s Report on Poverty in the US Is Rebuked by Nikki Haley

Maria Luisa Gambale

• June 28, 2018

When Philip Alston decided to focus a report on the United States, in his role as the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, the goal was to spur a larger discussion. However, in the past week there has been a slow-motion volley of criticisms instead, as Nikki Haley, the US …

Human Rights, Nikki Haley Watch, Poverty, US-UN Relations

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GEOPOLITICS

At the UN, a New Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons Is Adopted by 122 Nations

Maria Luisa Gambale

• July 7, 2017

Nuclear buildup and threat of nuclear war became a front-page item this past week, after Kim Jong Un’s declaration of a successful intercontinental ballistic missile test, confirmed on July 4 by United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Such headlines — proclaimed on America’s Independence Day — remind the public of the ever-present specter …

Disarmament, Gender Violence, Geopolitics, Nuclear Disarmament

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How Syrian Women Landed at the UN Peace Talks and What It All Means

Maria Luisa Gambale

• May 10, 2016

GENEVA — Like approaching a mirage, in early 2016 Syrian women have made significant steps closer to the central negotiating tables of the extremely fragile intra-Syrian peace talks. It’s a process that Syrian women and the United Nations have been building since mid-2013. And in the Geneva III peace negotiations — structured so far as …

Syria, Women

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In Italy, a Patchwork of Services for Migrants Arriving at Its Shores [Video]

Maria Luisa Gambale

• August 5, 2015

ROME — Italy is a slender peninsula ringed by 4,722 miles of coastline, a blessing that brings thousands of Italians to the sea each August for Ferragosto, the country’s summer vacation period. The coastline — one of the longest in the world — has also been attracting boats full of refugees and migrants, in …

Africa, Libya, Migration, Refugees

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WORLDVIEWS

The Heart of Sarajevo Is Back

Maria Luisa Gambale

• December 28, 2014

During a trip to Sarajevo in April, my first visit to the city, I was in the middle of Rebecca West’s long, erudite, poetic travel memoir about the Balkans, written in the late 1930s but covering hundreds of years of history in the region. For her, and for me reading it, Sarajevo was where …

WORLDVIEWS

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Syrian Women Working for Peace and Political Action

Maria Luisa Gambale

• October 21, 2014

GAZIANTEP, Turkey — Syrian women filled the conference room and lobby of a hotel in this border city for one week in late August this year. They were the focus of a “Space for Collaboration” workshop, providing networking and training to women working on political solutions to the Syrian civil war. A majority of …

Middle East, Peace and Security, Women

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What Good Can a Film Do?

Maria Luisa Gambale

• June 30, 2014

ISTANBUL — In 2013, Daniela Kon founded the Social Impact Media Awards to give a boost to a certain kind of documentary film. Documentaries don’t usually make a lot of money. Except for a few lucky theatrical or television releases each year that manage to do more than break even, most documentary films are …

Asia, Human Rights, Poverty, Refugees

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The Divided Life of Cyprus

Maria Luisa Gambale

• April 15, 2014

The United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus marked its 50th anniversary in March. The mission, which supervises cease-fire lines and maintains a buffer zone, has involved 32 countries that have contributed troops and police, among whom 184 peacekeepers have died. About 850 troops and 60 police officers make up the mission now, operating …